Experimentalism In Memento Mori

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The argument of essentialism and experimentalism can be dated to the first philosophers and still is a debate that is occuring to this day. The philosopher René Descartes has a unique perspective. Descartes says, “I think, therefore I am” (Descartes 1). He believes that to discover what is reality one must first doubt everything and start from the beginning. He found out that he exists because he is the one doubting in the first place. This is connected to the short story by Jonathan Nolan “Memento Mori”. In the short story the main character Earl is always at war with what is real. Essentially he lives for a couple of minutes and then another “Earl” that does not know what happened before takes his place. Earl is much like a machine, he runs scripts that he finds and is getting controlled by multiple users. And Earl does not think, he does. In reality, Descartes is saying there is no way to know that all that is perceived real exists if never doubted. If you would be a real seeker after truth, it…show more content…
He seeks for the truth of what happened before, and the past self knows what happened and what to do. He seeks for the clues that he left for himself before he forgot through methods such as: notes, tattoos and writing on walls. Earl does not think for a moment and doubts if he is certain that he wants to do this and if this is truly real, and just blindly follows instructions to reach a goal that he keeps on forgetting. The problem is Earl keeps on going without doubting if this is what he wants to do or the “past” Earl wants to do. Much like in a video game Earl basically has no control over his life, he is basically ran by scripts that different users left him to pick up and hoping he will piece it

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